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Re: FAN REVIEWS: 'Lost' (115)

Sorry guys I just canâ€™t come up with a snappy opening for this episode like all the others. But I will say this I havenâ€™t enjoyed an episode this much since Divided. I know that doesnâ€™t say much since it was three episodes ago. It just point to the high quality. While okay, Human was a little too saturated with character moments. Lost was the opposite in terms of storytelling. I felt the balance between characterization (mostly Greer) and action that comes with Eli and the others â€œplanet-hoppingâ€ was superb. I was on the edge of my seat for awhile and especially the last 10 minutes. But weâ€™re getting ahead of ourselves again. Back to the beginning.

The teaser is nice in the regard that it sets up the techno parts so we the viewers can get right to the action of the episode. I am talking about the part discovering that Destiny is leaving one galaxy and going to the next. That is an important piece of info and it helps us learn more about the Destiny. It tells us like when the Destiny goes to a sun it reserves vast amount of power so the ship can make it to another galaxy to finish its mission of exploring planets. I think that is an important piece of information for the future.

Okay show of hands who knew that C4 would make the ruins unstable? Be honest. I mentioned last week how I thought the ruins should collapse after that explosion. I take back what I said. I am pleased that they made the structure so dangerous in this episode. Also I am pleased with Chloe in this episode. I dare you to say she was useless in this episode. Go on I dare you. As you may have noticed I was very pleased with Chloe and making contributing skills about the ruins. Too bad about Greer though

I know itâ€™s scattered through out the episode but lets do the whole Greerâ€™s flashbacks in one paragraph. It really explains why Greer is who is. If I had a bitter mean drunk for a father Iâ€™d probably be a little angry too. You get poked and ridiculed so many times by a person (let alone this is his father) so many times youâ€™re bound to get angry at the world. As far as psychology goes, itâ€™s quite common to be angry at the world if you have had a rough upbringing. So it makes sense why Greer has a short fuse with people who anger him. Also it kind of shows of why Greer is loyal to his friends, like he was to Scott in Space. The way Greer was to his mother and it really hurt him to see her abused by Greerâ€™s father shows that Greer is at the heart a honorable man that does what he can for his friends. These scenes really spoke to me and made me feel sorry for Greer.

Now letâ€™s return to the Destiny and Rushâ€™s idea of gate hopping. It seemed a little far fetched to me. I always saw the Universe gates in tiny clusters that were inaccessible from one another. That is unless you have an intergalactic ship like the Destiny. Anyway the way Rush and James were going to travel it seemed like the gates in the galaxy are more like a chain with a person only able to go planet to planet in the chain. Speaking of James I forgot to mention something earlier. Her little session spoke to who she was. I always thought her thing with Scott was purely sex and maybe it was but James certainly didnâ€™t see it that way. It speaks to who James is and how heartbroken she is of what Scott is. It shows despite being a trained soldier James is still a human being who had emotions that were trampled on. I would be hurt if someone did that to me.

Now switching gears again to how Scott and company left behind of the â€œruinâ€ planet. Itâ€™s really a lose lose. I can not blame Scott for leaving Greer behind because well he is a human life and a valuable asset to the Destinyâ€™s survival. But at the same time you have to look at it in numbers. Every second lessens their chance of reaching Destiny so I think Scott made the right choice of leaving Greer behind especially since he didnâ€™t know they were dead. What can I say about the various planets in this gate-jumping? Not much except that I found them visually stunning. The CGI dinosaur looked awesome but there were other cool planets like the humid jungle and I especially like the snow planet. But not really anything worth mentioning (except Greer which I already brought up) until Eli realized they were close to the planet where Young gave Rush some revenge.

Speaking of the planet Iâ€™m calling Rushpotamia the tracing of the Destiny using the crashed alien ship makes sense. In the regard that we know the blue aliens are obsessed with Destiny so I understand that they would be tracking it in space. But if that crashed ship knew where Destiny was it raises two very serious questions. Why havenâ€™t the aliens been attacking Destiny if they knew where the ship was after all? And how did they access the information so quickly? I hope it was a relation to Chloe being in that water tank. Because if it wasnâ€™t this episode was solved way too fast.

We have to take a break to mention TJ announcing her pregnancy to Young. It seems out of place to me. We have a scene of her nervous to telling Young followed by her speech of being pregnant and keeping the baby and then nothing else happens. While from a storyline point of view Iâ€™m glad Young now knows and that TJ is strong in her stance of keeping the baby but the just seemed out place with the rest of the episode as it wasnâ€™t mentioned at all again.

Greer being rescued by James kind of reminds of SG1â€™s Serpentâ€™s Lair in that both episodes a team member gets left behind and through miraculous circumstances gets rescued before their teammates. Speaking of Greerâ€™s teammates lets talk about the climax. The first time Eli dialed the Destiny I had a feeling it was going to be Rushâ€™s team that reports back. But knowing Stargate like I do I just figured Eli and the team would make a lock in his 2nd dial. Imagine my shock when Scott, Eli, and Chloe were left behind when Destiny left the galaxy. It was a shocker of a cliffhanger and I am so excited how this continues in the next episode

Re: FAN REVIEWS: 'Lost' (115)

Not for the first time, I come away from Stargate Universe having enjoyed the episode but wondering what the heck actually happened. Did anything happen? In fact, a lot happened in Lost as it showcases the attempt to rescue Team SGU left behind at the end of Human while using its subplots to deepen the back-story on Greer and move things forward in terms of the TJ/Young arc. Yet perhaps like Life, the whole ends up feeling slightly rudderless and lacking in tension.

Itâ€™s the lack of tension which is actually the main issue here. There are attempts to create tension inherent in the story; the knowledge of the ticking clock before Destiny jumps into FTL, Greer racing towards his leaving team-mates having been left behind, the dinosaur coming out of the fog. But except for the last Stargate dialling sequence, there is no tension. None. The flow of the story just doesnâ€™t create it and the music doesnâ€™t underscore it. As a result, everything turns into a mush.

Itâ€™s not a bad mush. It reminds me of squishing good ice-cream until itâ€™s all squidgy; it all tastes OK, itâ€™s just hard to appreciate the individual flavors. And there are individual flavors here: the TJ/Young dynamic, Greerâ€™s back-story and the need to get Team SGU home. Because of the lack of tension in what should have been the main plot â€“ the issues with Team SGUâ€™s attempt to get back â€“ the rest gets folded in and everything just becomes same-y. And yet individually separating these threads out after the fact, theyâ€™re all interesting; all very valid in terms of driving the story forward or focusing on a character to reveal motivations.

The TJ/Young dynamic and the baby announcement is well done in the main. I loved the scene with TJ and Park showing a little female solidarity and support. I actually really liked the reveal scene where Young slowly discards his CO persona and becomes the man who had the affair with TJ and having to deal with its consequences. Both Louis Ferreira and Alaina Huffman are very good, but Huffman once again stole the scene for me.

I love Greer. I love Jamil Walker Smithâ€™s portrayal of Greer. And I liked that we had some focus on Greerâ€™s back-story to show why Greer is the man he is. Cameron Shang Forbes does a good job as young Greer in the flashbacks. Smith does a great job with adult Greer digging himself out of the tunnels and dealing with his abandonment on the planet: it was very touching and I felt moved. If Iâ€™m being very critical, I donâ€™t think there is enough difference in teenage Greer to Master Sergeant Greer in terms of body language and facial expression but then I donâ€™t think the teenage flashbacks are particularly helped by the horrendous hair. Was it a wig? I hope so.

The remaining plot is also interesting in parts, with teams from Destiny trying to backtrack through the Stargates to find Team SGU, and the remaining members of Team SGU trying to travel forward through the Stargates to Destiny. Itâ€™s great to see the Stargate being used; great to see the team formation. Itâ€™s nicely Stargate-y in feel. Some of the dialogue in the tunnels though, sounds more like Team Atlantis than Team SGU, particularly, Eliâ€™s freak out about using the â€˜Gates which could have been written for McKay. This happens again on the spaceship when Scott chooses 15 minutes as the arbitrary time allocated to searching the database and Eli questions it; the arguing over time thing was very much a McKay/Sheppard thing. Possibly the similarity is because writer Martin Gero, as a Stargate Atlantis alumnus, was more used to writing for those characters than Eli and Scott. He may have thought these scenes were nice homages; for me it smacks of a lack of confidence in characterization of Eli and Scott beyond their â€œroles.â€ I will say, though, that Chloe at least gets, and fulfills, a role in Team SGU, giving her character a purpose beyond Scottâ€™s sometimes-girlfriend at last.

The one thing that did jolt me out of the enjoyable stupor I had sunk into in watching the episode was the ending. SGU is turning the expected on its head. Of course it has to be careful that it doesnâ€™t start making the unpredictable, predictable. My jaw fairly dropped when Scott, Chloe and Eli failed to make it back to Destiny. But this is great. I like the believability of it and the surprise of it.

Lost is not a bad episode and itâ€™s nowhere near the worst episode of Stargate Universeâ€™s first season (Earth has that honor to date for me). It does have interesting things happen in terms of content but it has no tension and everything melds into a pile of goop. Itâ€™s enjoyable goop, but goop nevertheless.

Re: FAN REVIEWS: 'Lost' (115)

Lost

It's a show about a plane crash on a mysterious island that nobody knows about. Who can forget about that show? Jack Sheppard, The Swan, Benjamin Linus, The Foot Satue, Jacob? Every bit of that show was as memorable as the next and it's story was as deeply engaging as it was mysterious. Stargate Universe admires to be this show; hell, they even named this episode after Lost. (I know that this episode is about them lost but still...) I can just imagine SGU's room now, filled to the brim with Lost posters, pictures of Jack Shepard, poems about the island and various charts and graphs attempting to solve the mystery of the island. It's no secret SGU admires Lost and wants to be Lost as much as it can but no matter how much it tries and no matter where it goes, it will never be Lost. Never...

This episode ties to rectify two of my common criticisms of the show; that the main characters will never die (or be left behind) and that you could care less about the characters. The episode fails to rectify both but that's to be expected at this point... The concept behind it is interesting; they have to travel through various Stargates to find their way back to Destiny when they don't know where they're going and if they don't make it back then they're trapped forever. This would be a good episode concept had the show provided you with relatable characters and a sense of investment in regards to these characters but it's characters couldn't be less relatable or investful. The episode focuses on the three people from the previous episode; you know them well, Scott, Eli, Chloe and the Black Guy, it's the same as in the previous episode and if you didn't care back then; you still wouldn't care now.

Part of the problem is they spend the first half of the episode in the caves trying to get out; these scenes are monotonous, boring and ultimately lead nowhere. They try to make you care by adding some sense of danger and character elements into it but it's all for naught because there isn't any real sense of danger to these scenes. It is interesting to see the insides of the caves (which should of been done in the previous episode) but still, the cave scenes go nowhere and they don't add anything to the characters at hand. They could of removed the cave scenes and it would leave more time for them to focus on the interesting concept and the characters themselves; improving the episode drastically.

The planets that they go to are both realistic and generic; how is that possible? Well they look natural enough but they always manage to have something that comes from a cheap sci-fi movie; whether it be a dinosaur or a crystal planet with a bad atmosphere; which is a shame because I think some truly creative stuff can be made if they went outside the box. But we're not here to talk about the planets, we're here to talk about the progression as the characters go to those planets; As the episode progresses, you get a feeling that you're supposed to care for these characters but there is nothing that compels you to care for these characters, and that's a problem because an episode like this requires you to care for the characters. They're not trying to act as if time is of the utmost essence, they're just acting like it's an ordinary day for them with some edginess added.

The only characters that manage to stand out from the crowd is Eli and the Black Guy. Eli because he's actually acting like there isn't a chance and the Black Guy because he's manage to regain his grove from the previous episode and acts like there's no tomorrow. If there is one thing that this episode will be known for, it's the Black Guy. Focusing a portion of the episode on him was a good decision as he manages to provide the best scenes of the episode, it's just such a delight to watch him as he's put in a predicament that seems almost impossible; the actor behind the guy doesn't disappoint, he manages to make us feel his pain and struggles as he delivers a decent performance that also manages grow his character as a whole. If there was one flaw in his scenes, I would have to say it's the flashbacks; there just doesn't seem to be much purpose or clarity to them. If you're going to show Flashbacks then they better have an understanding of what they're supposed to do, otherwise it just leads to confusion.

As we reach the end of the episode; we're reminded of the essential fact that seems to follow us since the dawn of time. "These main characters always manage to make it back to the Destiny." This is not exaggerated, they always seem to make it back to the Destiny despite all odds and this has happened in nearly every episode, even if they don't come back in one, they always come back in the next. This episode manages to throw a curveball at us by twisting our expectations, I admit I was not expecting that but I still think they'll be back. Why? The show doesn't give off the feeling that any character is dispensable; the show is actively giving us the feeling that that they're afraid to put main characters into any real risk or danger, that these characters are too important to die. Sure, the show can compensate for this by killing off minor characters but it doesn't give off the same feeling; plus you don't feel anything for the minors or the secondaries when they leave or die, a large number of which barely appears in the series. Lost manages to make you care for every character no matter how dispensable, why can't SGU?

It's a bit late to mention this but the action on the Destiny takes a backseat to the Stargate plot. The scenes on the Destiny aren't as eventful or special as the scenes with the Stargate but they do try to make it special by having something happen to Destiny; (which I admit is unexpected, a nicely done thing that's rare in this show.) it's ultimately for naught, in fact it just serves to showcase the problems that dawn the show since it's beginning. There was something to be had with Eli missing from Destiny but they wasted it by having the characters barely care or about that; the show wants to be realistic but it can't manage to get it's characters to feel for the situation at hand, I guess they know they're coming back sooner or later. There are the also usual dramatic gimmicks, even reusing one from the previous episode. You remember the feeling when everybody was going to be saved in the nick of time, that reappears here in mostly the same form; they do try to justify it by making it slightly different but it just proves that they don't know how to do anything without dramatic gimmicks, even reused gimmicks.. Also TJ tries to deal with her forced pregnancy... Meh.

This episode would of been SGU's best in an alternate universe but instead it's a reflection of what could of been done; at every corner. The episode concept is interesting but it requires us to care about the characters shown and that can be a problem depending on which side of the fence you're on. The episode tries to make itself special but it ultimately falls into generic territory with the only thing standing out being the Black Guy. I know that this show isn't Lost but they could at least try to make compelling dramatic entertainment that doesn't seem amateurish and doesn't wastes it's potential.

3.5/10

Last edited by Zombies Rise from the Sea; April 11th, 2012 at 04:38 AM.